Description
This painting shows a well dressed Victorian woman skating on ice, probably in one of the parks of Paris, where the artist lived. She wears a long coat which has been blown back to reveal a striking yellow and dark blue dress. Her head is protected by a bonnet, tied with a pink ribbon and her hands are kept warm by a fur muff. A thick winter fog hangs in the air, obscuring our view of other skaters in the background.

The prolific artist, Ludovico Marchetti, was a born in Rome in 1853. In the early 1870s he studied in the studio of the Spanish painter Mariano Fortuny y Marsal (1838–1874), also based in Rome. At 25, he moved to France and began to exhibit at the Paris Salon (winning the bronze medal in 1889) and in the Salons of Munich and Berlin. Marchetti specialised in history and period genre subjects, most frequently painting scenes from the 16th to the 18th centuries. He worked in both oil paint and watercolour and produced several illustrations for the French weekly news publication L’Illustration.

This work has been chosen to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first official women’s events to be held as part of the Olympic Games. The 1908 Games were held in London and 36 sportswomen competed in figure skating and tennis events. The English figure skater, Florence Madeleine Cave Syers, not only won a gold medal in the individual event, but also a bronze for pair skating, partnered by her husband, Edgar Syers. A photograph of the couple, taken during the 1908 Games, shows Florence dressed somewhat like the woman in this painting, in a wide brimmed hat, white blouse and long skirt.